


they say miracles are past

by rellkelltn87



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Guilt, Olivia Benson Deserves The World, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rellkelltn87/pseuds/rellkelltn87
Summary: Set in December 2016, in a universe where Seasons 12-17 were very different for Olivia Benson.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	they say miracles are past

Sergeant Olivia Benson usually avoided eating and drinking at Forlini’s, since she was almost certain to run into SVU’s prosector-of-the-month there. They hadn’t had a dedicated ADA in almost seven years, adding insult to injury for an already understaffed, underfunded department. 

A department she’d fought hard for. A department that had never returned the favor, that had never stood behind her.

Tonight, she didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment brimming with reminders of her impending divorce, of the baby boy she had hoped to foster, of how her boss and her soon-to-be-ex-husband had talked her out of caring for Ellie Porter’s son, how they’d convinced her that her sense that the little boy was somehow _hers_ was founded on exhaustion and overwork, not reality. She didn’t want to go home to an apartment whose only purpose these days was to remind her again and again of her own failures, of what she’d lost because she’d trusted the opinions of her ex and her boss, who _never stopped talking_ , over her own gut. 

She wasn’t about to go to a cop bar tonight, either, not while she was under investigation by IAB regarding the death of an SVU detective earlier that spring, who’d been killed in the line of duty when he’d rescued a family from a violent corrections officer.

IAB didn’t blame her captain for sending a detective who’d been with SVU less than a year into a dangerous domestic violence situation. They blamed her, because she was on the scene with the detective, and her twenty years of experience should have been better able to assess the situation, the risk that the detective — who’d insisted on going in, making sure Munson’s wife and kids got the hell out of there — was taking.

An unnecessary risk, IAB and the chief and the deputy chief and the Mayor had already decided, and of course Benson blamed herself, because she probably could have shut the operation down before Detective Carisi was killed, but he was so _insistent_ , and he’d promised her that he’d assessed the risks himself, and that those risks were low, but he’d _lied_ , he’d lied because he believed in the trenches of his determined soul that if he charged forward regardless, if he kept going even though he was absolutely not supposed to keep going, a miracle would happen.

The dedicated detective’s unwavering belief in miracles had killed him, and in a particularly horrific manner where his colleagues and friends and family were all told he’d pull through but he didn’t, leaving everyone who cared about Carisi with tremors of unexplained false hope for months after he was already gone. 

Benson hadn’t told him to stand down. There had been opportunities for her to tell him to stand down, and she let him go forward not on police procedure but on his own determined belief in miracles.

Fuck miracles. The concept of miracles did more harm than good.

So of course she was at fault, but not in any sense that warranted this months-long investigation that was sure to force her into retirement.

In fact, she was ready to retire now.

She was sure that Captain Elliot Stabler, her onetime partner and sometime friend, was ready to see her — and all her constant pushing for something better for their department — go. 

They’d gotten into a blowout fight a few months ago when he’d had Detective Amanda Rollins transferred, ultimately advocating to get her fired, because gambling debts had led her to participate in an undercover operation without permission from her superiors. “The undercover operation saved her life,” Benson had tried to argue, had exhausted herself arguing, but no one was listening, and it ended with Stabler shouting at her, and her preparing to transfer out of SVU, and finally the higher-ups offering her a role as sergeant so she could continue to hold down the fort. 

And then there was Cassidy, broken down and broken-hearted over the divorce, even though he was the one who’d talked her out of fostering Noah Porter, even though he was the one who’d made their marriage so exhausting, here _she_ was having to take on the entire weight of _his_ broken heart. 

So no apartment just yet, and definitely no cop bar, which was how she wound up at Forlini’s on a chilly Thursday night in mid-December.

The bar was more crowded than she’d expected, with the only available seat next to a dark-haired man in a designer suit, eating a meal from a full-sized plate in front of him. 

The man looked up at her, and, still chewing, said, “Sit. Drink. Smile.”

She rolled her eyes but took the seat next to his. He had a yellow legal pad to the right of his plate — must have been a regular if the bartender let him take up that much space — so she assumed he was an attorney. She ordered a Cabernet and didn’t smile.

He reached out a hand. “Rafael Barba,” he said. “ADA for Kings County Special Victims division.”

Now Benson relaxed a bit. “Olivia Benson,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Can I get you something to eat, Sergeant Benson?’

She shook her head and wondered how he knew she was a sergeant. 

He smirked down at his glass of scotch. “The mayor wanted me to look into charging you with reckless endangerment, since Gary Munson’s house was in Brooklyn.” After taking a sip of scotch and licking his lower lip, he added, “I told the mayor to fuck off.”

Benson laughed. “I’m sure you didn’t, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“You’re absolutely sure I can’t get you something to eat?” he asked. “I feel —”

“You don’t know me.”

“It’s terrible that my department had to waste as much time as it did investigating _you_ when a garbage rapist corrections officer murdered your detective.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I had no idea that the mayor wanted to charge me with a crime until just now.”

“No,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, “that does not make me feel better.”

She found herself a little fascinated by the semi-flirtatious ADA with sad bulging green eyes. He was apologetic, saying that his heart sank when he recognized her face as she’d approached the bar. 

“Hey now,” she teased, taking a sip of her wine.

“I meant my heart sank when —”

“I know what you meant.”

“I’m sorry that I went as far as I did with the investigation into you. I should have put an end to it as soon as it was clear — after the first five minutes — that you didn’t recklessly endanger anyone.”

“Huh.” She leaned forward and stared into the mouth of her glass.

“What?” 

“That was the first time in ten years a man genuinely apologized to me.”

Barba laughed, but cleared his throat nervously when he realized she wasn’t kidding. “You’re serious?” he prompted.

“Means more than you know,” she said, raising her glass to meet his with a _clink_.

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Benson said, “Detective Sonny Carisi was destined for so much more than being shot by a rapist domestic abuser at 36.”

“I believe that.”

The glimmer in Barba’s eyes comforted her. She hadn’t felt that sort of comfort in a very long time, longer than she could remember. 

“He was studying nights at Fordham, working on a JD. He was so much more compassionate than he let on during his first few weeks with us, did _so much_ for victims, for survivors. There was a compassion and a kindness in him that SVU will never see the likes of again, and I”m sure in five years he’d have been a rare breed of compassionate prosecutor. He was so _young_ , Rafael — can I call you Rafael? — and it’s so unfair the way he was killed.”

“I heard he went after Munson without a vest, against his commanding officers’ advice.”

Benson let her eyes blink closed. “He believed — he really believed — that if he charged forward to save Munson’s wife without waiting for backup, which was only minutes away, he’d _have_ to survive. It makes no sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Barba offered.

“Are you still investigating me?”

“No, no, of course not. I wouldn’t be allowed to talk to you if my office was — I’d have to send out retired detectives who work for us — and like I said, the idea of charging you with anything was ridiculous. The mayor was off his rocker.”

“Listen,” she said, “I have a few really good red wines at home. Do you want to talk more over a glass of really good red wine?”

Barba raised an eyebrow. “I’d love to,” he said, taking out his wallet and throwing a few bills down on the bar without bothering to ask for his tab.

There was a delightful smirk on his lips as they left Forlini’s together, one that become a full-on smile when the kissed in the entryway to her apartment. 

“So,” he said to her when they were seated together on the couch with those glasses of really good red wine she’d promised, “how come you’re not the commanding officer of SVU?”

She rolled her eyes for the second time that night, much like she had when he’d told her to _sit, drink, smile_.

“I mean it,” he said, looking at her with all the seriousness in the world. “From everything that’s landed on my desk about you, I know you should have been captain of Manhattan SVU.”

“Tell that to the brass,” she said. With a soft sound halfway between a laugh and a snort, she added, “You’re either laying it on thick because you want to make sure you’re getting in my pants tonight, or you’re an insightful man who just said something I needed to hear.”

“Either way,” he joked.

“I’m glad I met you tonight, Rafael.”

“Same here.” He leaned in to kiss her, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek with his long fingers. When their lips broke from the surprisingly sweet kiss, he said, “so, so glad.” 

Her two-bedroom apartment, like her heart, held too many losses, but promised to be comfortable — comforting — for at least this one night.


End file.
